Thankful!

Thankful... That is exactly what Dan and I are for our amazing family! When I look back at all that has happened this past year I cannot help but be unbelievably thankful for everything that the Lord has given us and all that He has taught us and all the circumstances that He has brought us through. A year ago we had no idea that we would be blessed with two more Wee Rudes. Crazy how much can happen in a year.

A few of the things that I am thankful for...
3 Healthy and Beautiful children
That Myla and Rex are growing and developing so well
That Quinton has adjusted so well to having Rex and Myla around
That I have an amazing husband who willingly wakes up with me every night (as long as we can watch ESPN) to help me with the babies
The fact that I am now a Mini Van Mom!
That we have so many family members and friends who bent over backwards to help us while I was on bed rest and after the babies were born. I cannot even put into words how helpful everyone was and continues to be. That was definitely a time in our lives that required us to trust the Lord and rely on the help of so many people. I am truly grateful for everyone who sacrificed so much to help us out!

Myla looking beautiful!
I sure do enjoy having pink around!Both babies are smiling more and more. It is so fun to see them grow and develop. I love that they recognize our voices and will stop crying when we talk to them. They are such sweet babies. I stand by my statement that they will be very tough because of their big brother. They both have taken pacifiers to the eyes, nose, forced in their mouth, all of course out of the goodness of Quinn's heart as he tries to help us out. Quinton really has come to like them. The other morning we were getting in the car and I had taken Myla and Quinton out first and Quinn ran back to the front door saying "Ex, Ex" (for Rex) he was quite concerned that I had left him in the house. Quinn loves to sit in the Bumbo chairs with the babies and gladly with hold a bottle or help me burp them. Quinton has adjusted well to his role as a big brother.

Myla showing off her incredible neck strength.

Just being sweet

Right now Rex is more of the vocal or the two in terms of making sweet little noises (not crying, Myla wins for loudest cry) and Myla is a lot stronger (again, she doesn't have quite as much to lift up). Rex will smile and make sweet cooing noises. Myla just loves to look around and refuses to put her head down and is always pushing off your lap with her legs. Both continue to be such great babies.

The babies were dressed and ready for Thankgiving but as you can see, Dan was not! It was kind of fun to get them dressed up and looking sharp!

Here are a few videos of the babies. Sorry that they are not super exciting but babies at this ago don't do a whole lot!
Myla Smiling
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXpVBFL2RCY
Rex Smiling
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IM95-SxDM78
Babies together... Dan and Quinn are listening to music and singing and dancing in the background!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPKfxq4fq7s
They like hanging together

We continue to be amused and in love with Quinn. His new favorite thing to do is to burp not only Rex and Myla but also Dan and I. He constantly wants to burp us and breaks into giggles while doing it! He also enjoys being naked (or just in his diaper). He is absolutely hilarious and runs all around the house saying "nake, nake" meaning naked! He really brings so much joy and laughter to our house. It is so fun to see all that he understands and how much he tries to communicate with us. He continues to love guitars and has a new adoration for little match box cars. He will play so nicely by himself with his cars while I feed Rex and Myla. I find them EVERYWHERE in our house because he thinks its fun to drive them around in crazy places.

Quinn is always getting into something... literally!

Quinton just woke up from his nap and wanted to join Rex for some tummy time.

My handsome, bright eyed little boy showing off a little smirk.

A sleeping baby is one of the sweetest things!

Dan doing a little multitasking. Holding Rex and playing with Quinn. We have become experts at doing many things at once. Feeding, burping, playing, and of course singing. Whenever Quinn is sad all you have to do is start singing and he forgets all his troubles!

Quinn enjoying a little playdough (thank you Ashley for the suggestion). We made snakes, balls, and shapes. I am no playdough expert but I think it will be a fun indoor activity for the winter!

Being goofy with Daddy... something these two boys are VERY good at!

Oh how I love a messy face!

My little drummer boy! Practically ANYTHING these days can be turned into a guitar or a drum. He is truly a creative and musical little boy and boy does he ever like to make noise. I am thankful that Rex and Myla are such good sleepers through all the music!

Growing up my mom had this saying in a frame...

"Cleaning and Scrubbing can wait till tomorrow for babies grow up we have learned to our sorrow. So quiet down cobwebs and dust go to sleep. I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep."

I am learning how true this is. My house may not be the cleanest right now (I do pick it up every day) but Dan and I are really enjoying our children. It is such a blessing to get to cuddle them and play with Quinn and read books and hold a sleeping baby in your arms. The twins will be three months old this week and I can't believe how fast time has already gone. I don't want to miss any of it because I am too busy doing other things. I am so thankful for my family. I have discovered that being thankful (even when you're awake in the middle of the night) makes life such a joy!

Bumbos, Baking and Beyond...

Life at the Rude house is quite exhilarating, but as seen in the picture above can be quite exhausting too! We go through an average of 21 diapers a day, an average of 22 feeding times a day (Rex and Myla each taking 8 and Quinn 3 meal, 2 snacks and milk before bed), 3 times a day I pick up my living room, 2 times a day I wipe spit up off my shirt, but I get tons of kisses (Quinton now gives kisses to everyone and everything) and smiles from all three of my babies, making all the craziness totally worth it!

Sleeping Beauty!

Handsome Rex

Bumbo Time!
Rex and Myla's necks continue to get stronger so I decided to pull out their bumbo chairs! I don't think that these chairs were designed with a 7 lb baby in mind so we have to stick a blanket under Miss Myla to make the chair work for her. Both babies do well in them for a few minutes and their big brother likes to be in the mix too. He thinks it is pretty fun to sit with "My" and "Ex"... aka Myla and Rex. It's fun because Quinn is getting very good at saying their names. He also, as mentioned above, loves to give them kisses!

Both Myla and Rex enjoy being able to look around a little while in the Bumbo chairs. Isn't she cute?

Rex is thinking about how heavy his head is!

My sweet youngest baby!

Baking!
This has become a favorite past time for Quinton and I. We never used to have baked goods in our house but it is fun to do together. I also found some Christmas sprinkles which were quite a hit while making some peanut butter cookies!

This video will show you all just why Quinton loves to bake. I'm not sure if more chocolate chips ended up on the cookies or in Quinn's mouth. He enjoyed flattening the cookies (just like Papa likes them) and of course putting sprinkles on them. Needless to say, I have a red a green kitchen floor!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKTUWNHnTQg
This is what our cookies look like with a little help from Quinn!

Another exciting event this week was putting up our Christmas Tree. We enjoyed a family day and decided to put our tree up (I know it's a little early but I knew Quinton would enjoy it). It was fun to see him get so excited, especially about the lights. When he wakes up in the morning the second thing we do (the first is ask about the babies) is now turn on our Christmas tree. He enjoys all the ornaments. He offers the ornaments goldfish and drinks of his water. So funny how he comes up with these things on his own!

My little Helper with the lights!

Decorating the tree!

He's in awe of the tree and I am in awe of how much I love this boy!

I put Rex and Myla under the Christmas tree to look at the lights while Quinn took a bath and when he got out he decided to join them. Again, Rex seems to always get a little squished but he is a good sport! It is so sweet to see them all laying together!

Just being his silly self!

So, this seems to be the answer to our bath time troubles... Quinton will bathe for an hour if he is in his baby tub. I'm not really sure why it makes such a difference but he is a different boy when sitting in this little bath! It does however get a little crowded in the tub when you put all the trucks, markers, balls, dinosaurs but I am willing to do just about anything for a clean baby!

Goofy!

He could not get any cuter!

My Little Stud!

We are sad that the weather is getting colder and if anyone has any suggestions for fun indoor activities please keep me posted. It could be a long winter if we don't have some fun activities to do and we can't bake every day :)
We are looking forward to the holidays. We are so blessed to have such great families. We are heading to the Rude's for Thanksgiving. It is always fun with all the kids and family around and then off to Arkansas for Christmas with all the Millers. We are truly thankful for our family!

Rolls....

It's hard to imagine a 7 lb baby having rolls but Miss Myla is starting to get some little rolls on her legs and Rex has had them for a while! It is pretty cute to see both of them filling out. Quinton never had a single roll on his legs so this is new territory for me when changing their diapers.

Rex and Myla continue to blow our minds and doctors minds with their amazing progress and they act a lot more like two month olds as opposed to new borns (which according to their due date they would be only two weeks old). I think that Rex has smiled at me and Myla is looks like she is getting close. I will do my best to capture these smiles on my camera! They continue to have more awake time and are both getting so strong. Myla holds her head up a little better, but then again, she has quite a bit less to hold up!

They continue to grow on Quinton and he has become quite polite and will tell us "down down" meaning, put the babies down and come play with me. I mean at least he is asking! Both Rex and Myla strongly prefer the sides of their heads (if you have not noticed). We are told that
NICU babies tend to favor the sides of their heads but we are working on getting them to look straight. But if you ask me, they still are pretty perfect!

Rex is protecting Myla

Quinton continues to amaze us. All his dreams came true when a friend of ours let him touch/play his guitar at church. He talked about it the rest of the day with a twinkle in his eye! Quinn is quite the social butterfly and turns into a peacock any time other kids are around, he fluffs his feathers and struts around. He really enjoys all his friends and seems to play well, sharing is not quite a concept that he has fully grasped yet but we are working on it. I have a feeling that sharing have to be practiced a lot around our house in the future with all three of our babies so close in age!

Quinton is enjoying Rex and Myla's Christmas present from Nana and Papa. We asked for a wagon for the twins and Santa delivered it early. Much to Quinn's delight, the twins are not quite ready for a ride yet so he is breaking it in for them!

He is practicing pulling it for next spring when he will get to pull Rex and Myla around in it!

Quinton Daniel

He discovered that he can hide things in the fancy new wagon.

Rex and Myla's face are slowly becoming bigger than the pacifiers. When they were in the NICU they would take up their whole face. On a side note... I think these are the ugliest pacifiers ever!

Enjoying a little gym time together

Our Nieces Leah and Anna enjoying their cousins at a Rude family gathering!

Quinton has taken a liking of Red leaves so he was delighted to find all of these on a walk one day!

Here is an example of one of his "Boards". He even will pretend to push himself with one foot! Crazy how kids pick up on things so quickly!

Quinton and I enjoyed a beautiful day at the Park the other day while Dan stayed home with Rex and Myla. He did a lot of playing but once these trucks went into action the playing was over and the drooling began. He cried when we left but was thrilled to tell his dad about the trucks and the diggers that we saw!

We continue to learn what "normal" looks like around the Rude house. Busy, busy, busy, but we sure are blessed!

Jumping

As Meg mentioned, Quinn really likes to jump these days, he just doesn't actually leave the ground with both feet. I got a short video when I visited a couple weeks ago, but he didn't like me filming him because then I couldn't jump with him :)

Growing, We Do It Every Day!

"Growing, we do it every day. We're growing when we're sleeping and even when we play. Each day we grow a little taller we can do more things because I'm growing and so are you!"

These are words to a Barney Song that I learned over 12 years ago while babysitting. Many of the Barney songs that I learned so long ago have come in handy while I am feeding the twins. Quinton is the dancer and I am on vocals (I'm sure glad that no one listens besides my family). But really, I feel like the words to this song apply to my kids. Every day Quinton can reach more things, do more things, say more things. He has more words that I can count now and communicates better and better each day. And Rex and Myla get bigger and hungrier and cuter every day.

Rex looking dangerously handsome!
Miss Myla

Myla Jane

Rex Michael

Rex and Myla's personalities continue to emerge. It is so fun to see how different they are. I cannot believe that they are already two months old. Exciting, but oh my goodness how time is flying! Quinton continues to enjoy them more each day and almost every time we go to get him out of his crib in the morning or after his nap, the first thing he asks for is the babies.

He warms my heart!

Some of Quinn's new favorite words are Guitar and Board(which stands for skate board). He has become quite fascinated by our neighbor boys skate board and anything with wheels on it in our house has now become a "board", much to my dismay. Due to the two newest loves in my life I cannot constantly have my eyes on Quinn so whenever I am not looking he climbs onto one of his bigger cars to attempt to skate board. You would think that the bloody lip that he got from "skate boarding" would have stopped him but he is just to excited by skate boarding to be stopped by a little blood.

Quinn has also become quite the jumper too. He has not quite mastered getting both feet off the ground at the same time but he gets a A for effort and practices often!

Enjoying the beautiful day with Quinton!

It is so much fun to see Quinton's memory growing. The boy seems to remember everything! We talk about his little friends and his face lights up, we talk about baking with Aunt Kelly and he runs to the kitchen and of course anything to do with Nana and Papa sends him over the moon!

Trying on Dad's shoes!

Looking at a lady bug on a stick while exploring outside!

Don't you just want to snuggle with them all day?

Life continues to be busy, although I think that word is an understatement. It's more often than not that we are all up and ready to go by 9, it's best if I just get up and going. I even ventured out to church Sunday morning by myself (Dan had to be there early) with all three kids. It was fun to look in my rear view mirror of my stylish mini van and see my three little kids in the back. I have a feeling that I won't be running errands with all three of them any time soon but an occasional outting with all three is good for everyone!
We are so in love with all of our children and so thankful that they are all doing well and of course GROWING!

I decided to use my early morning feeding time with Rex and Myla to update all of you!